MICHAEL REAGAN I have some more friendly but important advice for you, Mr. President. It’s not about your itchy Twitter finger or your golf game. My advice is purely political and it’s based on several decades of watching and working with my father. If you want to achieve two of the most important goals of your new administration – genuine healthcare reform and real tax reform – you’ve got to understand and appreciate what my father knew instinctively: In presidential politics, perception is more important than reality. I saw my father put that simple truth into practice during an international crisis in 1985. He and Nancy were planning to leave the White House in June to spend a few days at Rancho del Cielo, his ranch near Santa Barbara. But on June 14 a group of Lebanese terrorists with guns and grenades hijacked a TWA flight from Athens to Rome and forced it to land in Beirut. While the world watched the news reports, the plane flew around the Middle East for three days. The terrorists beat passengers and threatened to kill them unless the Israeli government released about 700 Shiite prisoners. The hostages were released over the next two weeks, but an American, Navy diver Robert Stethem, was shot in the head and his body was dumped on the runway. My father could have flown out to California as he planned.